Variations on the Theme of Salmalín
by Hedgewitchery
Summary: A series of short vignettes, notquitedrabbles, featuring some or all of the members of the Salmalín family, mostly Sarralyn and Rikash. FINISHED!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This is the beginning of a series of 24 (or maybe 32?) vignettes featuring assorted Salmalíns -- mostly Sarralyn and Rikash. I've split them into "chapters" of 8 vignettes each.

**Disclaimer: **I did not invent any of these characters, and I don't own them. If they do thinks that are wildly out of character, however, that part is my fault.

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**Variations on a Theme of Salmalín**_  
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_1. Bullies_

Sarralyn sometimes finds her younger brother difficult to love—particularly after he has set something of hers on fire. (Once he fills her clothes-trunk with frogs and, when she shouts at him, says innocently, "I thought you _liked_ animals.") She tells him with some regularity that he is a dreadful little pest (and other things less complimentary), and she gets her revenge by sneaking up on him in the shape of a wolverine or a mountain cat.

So if Rikash is surprised when the palace bullies glowering down at him blanch, turn tail, and run, he is more surprised when, looking behind him, he sees Sarra grinning with huge carnivore teeth and brandishing a murderous-looking set of grizzly-bear paws.

But, then again, not really.

* * *

_2. Maybe Not_

Rikash thinks it would be the most wonderful thing to be able to shape-shift, until the afternoon when he comes upon his mother and sister picking out of each other's hair the burrs they have picked up while scouting in wolf form. They look exhausted and annoyed, and Rikash decides he likes his own sort of magic just fine, thank you.

* * *

_3. Adorable_

People are always telling them how _sweet_ little Rikash is, how _adorable_, with his mop of brown curls and his dark, soulful eyes. Sarra has reached the age when she finds this deeply annoying, and has to resist the urge to tell them all about the time he set fire to her favourite nightshirt or the time he froze the bathwater around them in the tub. Then the small hand slips confidingly into hers and the velvety brown eyes look up at her with puppy-like devotion, and she forgets what she wanted to say.

* * *

_4. Different Kinds of Trouble_

"I have somefing you don't, Sawwa!" Rikash says.

"Yes," his sister replies patiently. She is kneeling beside the wooden tub, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, trying to scrub the soot out of his hair – on the quiet, before their parents find out. "You have the Gift. I _know_ that. That's how we got _into_ this mess."

"Not dat. _Dis_!" he stands up, splashing her, and points triumphantly down at the thing he has that she doesn't.

Despite herself, Sarralyn laughs. "Oh, that," she says. "Well, Ma says one day that'll get you into just as much trouble as the magic. Now, sit down. I'm not done."

"Twouble? How?" Rikash's dark-brown eyes are puzzled.

Sarra shrugs. "_I_ don't know," she says. "Maybe you should ask Da."

* * *

_5. Tears_

When Sarra has done something naughty, and been lectured or shouted at, she shrugs off the scolding and emerges with head held high; if she sheds tears of regret or humiliation, it is later, in secret. Rikash handles chastisement differently, noisily apologetic and given to extravagant gestures of contrition. His sister scorns his ready tears and mocks his sincere but unkeepable promises of good behaviour—but they both know that he is the only one who is allowed to see her cry.

* * *

_6. Silver Lining_

"Are you _mad_, Numair? What in the name of Shakith were you _thinking_?"

Their parents are arguing, loudly. Rikash is unequivocally frightened and upset. Sarra, who has seen more of this, covers his ears with her hands and lets him bury his face in her shirt. Her own distress is tempered both by the knowledge that her parents will make up their quarrel before long and by the secret, traitorously delicious idea that, until they do, they will avoid each other for a little while—perhaps as long as a few hours. And then (maybe, if she is lucky) she can have one of them (it doesn't particularly matter which)_ all to herself_ for a little while.

* * *

_7. Discovery_

Sarralyn is still quite small when she makes an important—possibly life-altering—discovery: her father will cheerfully accept the disappearance of her pocket money, and sometimes even give her more, if he thinks she has spent it on books.

* * *

_8. Something Right_

Sometimes—often—Daine is not sure what to do with her children. Life was so much simpler (though no more restful, to be honest) when they were babies, when their problems could all be solved by a breast or a change of diaper, when she didn't worry constantly that they would do serious harm to themselves or, worse, to somebody else. (She tends to forget those first six weeks of Sarralyn's life, which she thought at the time would be the death of her.) What if she is doing this all wrong, and raising little monsters? On the other hand, sometimes she is so proud of them—their accomplishments, their small deeds of kindness, their beauty, or, sometimes, simply the fact that they exist—that she decides she must be doing something right.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Part 2.

**Disclaimer: **Not invented by me._  
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9. Cheating_

Sarralyn and Rikash know better than to cheat against less gifted playmates; but (despite many lectures on the subject) they do cheat, outrageously and inventively, against each other. Sarra, playing tag, finds herself frozen to the spot, unable to run from her brother; during a game of hide-and-seek, Rikash looks in vain for his sister, only to discover her an hour later when, in the shape of a mouse, she emerges from his belt pouch, runs up his shirt, and nips his ear. Sarra refuses to play chess again after the game during which Rikash's chessmen, cloaked by magic, disappear from their squares and reappear elsewhere to threaten her king and queen.

The most spectacular cheat of all (involving eagle wings, a not-quite-successful invisibility spell, a bloodhound, a goose, and a Sorcerer's Dance that calls cobbles from a nearby stream and builds them into a circular wall) is arrested at a crucial moment by the approach of heavy footsteps and a net of sparkling black fire that lifts both children, struggling indignantly, six feet into the air.

A golden eagle screeches overhead, circles, and lands on a nearby branch. It develops a human mouth, which seems to be laughing as it says, "It's your own fault, Numair. You should never have taught him to play that flute."

* * *

_10. Exclusion_

Daine has been away on some sort of mission for the King, and when she returns, Sarralyn sees her father's dark eyes glow, his broad shoulders straighten, his whole bearing relax as he runs to greet her and lifts her from her pony's back, swinging her into an embrace that, for a good few minutes, excludes everyone and everything else.

Rikash runs to them and tugs at his mother's boot-top (the highest part of her he can reach) to get her attention. Sarra hangs back, wondering whether any man will ever look at her the way her father looks at her mother.

* * *

_11. Mice_

The first time her parents let her fly with them as a hawk, Sarra is captivated by the weightless feeling of soaring on an updraft, the brilliant tapestry of the countryside around Pirate's Swoop laid out below her, the freedom of leaving her human self behind for a time.

But for hours afterward, she fights an urge to shriek and a gnawing appetite for raw mice.

* * *

_12. Acceptance_

When Rikash is ten and begins his first year at the Royal University, he finds that his reputation (not to mention his father's) has preceded him. The masters—especially old Master Lindhall and the head of the University, Master Harailt—are kind to him; they have known him all his life, but they are careful not to treat him _too_ familiarly in front of his classmates. But only when Rikash, caught in the act of throwing small bursts of magical fire at the head of another boy who has dozed off at a nearby desk, is immediately and roundly upbraided by Master Salmalín for disrupting the lesson does he finally earn his yearmates' respect.

Later, he seeks his father out to thank him. Numair pretends not to understand, but the way he squeezes his son's shoulder tells Rikash a different story.

* * *

_13. A Foot in My Face_

"Ouch! She _kicked_ me!"

Daine opens her eyes to see Numair rubbing his chin with one hand and holding their daughter's foot away from his face with the other, most of her leg hidden by his long fingers. Little Sarralyn, oblivious to the disruption she is causing, continues to snore.

Daine stifles a giggle. "It's only fair," she whispers, rubbing her large belly. "Her brother or sister is kicking the stuffing out of _me_."

* * *

_14. Midwinter Gifts_

The year she is nine, Sarralyn saves her pocket money for _months_ and makes her Aunt Onua take her to the great market in Corus to buy her parents _really good_ Midwinter gifts. For her mother she chooses an extravagant bracelet, all coloured beads and tinkly silvery bits; for her father, a set of ink-brushes "guaranteed to last forever."

The ink-brushes wear out within the year from constant use, but years later Sarra finds the bracelet in Daine's jewel-box, carefully wrapped in a silk handkerchief, next to the earbobs Numair gave her at Midwinter when she was fifteen.

* * *

_15. Skin Deep_

Rikash spends an afternoon studying the paintings in the Palace's portrait gallery. Later, as they lie in their beds in the dark, he asks Sarralyn if she thinks Princess Kalasin—Empress Kalasin, she is now—is as pretty as Ma.

"Prettier," she says immediately. "Ma's not such a beauty, you know, not compared to Queen Thayet or Princess Kally. But she can talk with animals and immortals, and shape-shift, and shoot better'n almost anybody, and that's _better_ than being pretty."

"Well, _I _think she's prettier'n _anybody_," Rikash says, just before he falls asleep.

* * *

_16. Sixteen_

Daine looks at her daughter helplessly, trying to remember what it felt like to be sixteen. The trouble is, she was very little like any sixteen-year-old before or since, so even what she does remember doesn't seem likely to be of much use.

"You were _living_ with Da when you were my age," Sarra accuses, "_and_ not even married. You can't tell me I'm too young to be courting."

"That isn't what I said."

"You and Da just don't _like_ him."

"Not particularly, no. I don't think he's very bright, and your Da thinks he's only trying to get you into his bed."

Sarra glares at her. "And what of it? I didn't say anything about wanting to _marry_ him."

"In the Goddess's hands be it, then," Daine sighs. "And don't say I didn't warn you."


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: **_Part 3.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, Tamora Pierce's.

_17. A Family Outing_

Numair looks at his wife and their children and wonders, not for the first time, just how all this has come to pass. He remembers things: how his teachers in Carthak laughed at the idea of wild magic; how he once thought Varice Kingsford would make him a good wife; how he fought, tooth and nail, to keep from Daine the knowledge that he loved her; all the times that one or the other of them died, or nearly died, or ought to have died.

"Truly, the Gods have smiled on me," he murmurs.

The others exchange glances; then three pairs of eyes (two smoky blue, one brown) regard him cautiously.

"We're stuck out here in the rain, Da," Sarralyn reminds him.

"Two hours' ride from the Tower, and without shelter," adds Rikash.

"And we aren't sure where we are," finishes Daine.

"I know," he replies, grinning. "Isn't it wonderful?."

* * *

_18. Birthday_

They don't celebrate birthdays much as a rule (Da doesn't like to be reminded how much older he is than the rest of them, and Ma says so much fuss embarrasses her), but this one is special, because he is going to be ten. Everyone has brought him little gifts, and Ma has asked the palace cooks to make all his favourite dishes. Rikash is torn between basking in all the attention and wishing there were not _quite _so much of it.

The best thing about a big party, he decides, is the feeling you get when all the guests have left and you are home again, sitting quietly in your favourite chair, with a purring cat in your lap who is also your sister.

* * *

_19. Reflections_

Daine and Numair stand side by side, each with an arm around the other, studying their reflection in the mirror. He sees the grey streaks in his coal-black hair, the crow's-feet round his eyes, the body no longer _quite _in its former fighting trim. She sees a woman older than her mother ever grew, a little plumper than she used to be, and never particularly beautiful.

He sees a young woman with blue-grey eyes framed by long, thick lashes, slender and beautifully curved, stronger than she looks and with lightning reflexes and astounding magic, who has borne him two beautiful and gifted children and saved his life more times than he cares to remember. He sees the woman he loves, more beautiful than the girl he fell in love with and more dear to him with each day they spend together.

She sees a man of enormous power and equally great goodwill, a man who would give his life to protect her and their children, the man whose kindness, patience, and laughter taught her almost everything she knows about her magic, about love, about loyalty. She sees the man she has loved since before she understood what love was.

And, on the whole, both are more than satisfied with what they see.

* * *

_20. Flying_

Perched astride his father's broad shoulders, Rikash can see practically forever, and he feels like the king of the Eastern Lands. He has already decided that one day he will learn to become a hawk (or maybe an eagle) the way Da does it. But until then, this is the closest he can come to flying.

* * *

_21. Nose and Hippos  
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When Sarralyn (or whoever—whatever—she was at the time) was born, Tortall was still embroiled in the Scanran War, and her parents in the thick of it.

From time to time, when she is older, she meets total strangers who tell her they remember meeting her before, somewhere or other along the Scanran border, as a baby riding in a sling on her mother's back.

Raoul the Giantkiller never tires of telling about the time she pulled his hair and pinched his nose. Sarra doesn't much like this story, but at least it doesn't involve quills, or a baby river horse. Everybody in the realm seems to know _that_ story, but this doesn't stop them telling it again and again and again until she wants to scream (or turn into a river horse, just to shut them up).

* * *

_22. Ordinary?_

Every so often, idly, they wonder (and sometimes discuss between themselves) what it might be like to have an _ordinary _family: parents who make their living as something other than the realm's most powerful mages; one home, perhaps a fairly humble one, instead of endless shuttling from one to another; no dragons or basilisks in the family; grandparents who can visit or be visited on the spur of the moment, instead of coming only at the turning of the seasons (or, in the other case, never at all). It would be so nice and peaceful, Rikash thinks. But they would miss Kitten dreadfully.

These two are perhaps less capable of accurately imagining the lives of "ordinary" children than any child before or since.

* * *

_23. Portrait_

A portrait of the four Salmalíns hangs in the common room in the Tower at Pirate's Swoop. It was painted by Volney Rain, an artist in Corus. Rikash is fascinated by it at first, then, when he begins not to recognize himself in the curly-headed seven-year-old memorialized on the canvas, annoyed.

It is only years later that he realizes he is not the only one who has changed.

* * *

_24. Learning_

Daine and Numair teach Sarralyn to read; Rikash, as far as they can determine, picks up this skill entirely on his own. The first they learn of it is the day when, at the age of four, he interrupts their reminiscences of the Battle of Pirate's Swoop, lugging into the sitting-room a dusty tome nearly as big as he is, to ask, "Da, what's a _sim-_ull-a-_croom_?"


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Part 4 -- there turned out to be a Part 4 that I hadn't originally planned on.

Previously disclaimed, I should hope. #25 bears a distinct resemblance to my almost-4-year-old. #31 is basically just me wishing I had magic at my disposal as a parenting tool ;).

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_25. Of Marmosets_

Sarralyn, aged nearly four, is lying on her stomach on the floor, nose just inches away from a particular page of a particular book belonging to her mother.

"What's that you're looking at, love?" Daine inquires, from the sofa where she is nursing Rikash.

"It's a piggly marmoset," Sarra replies, without looking up. "Like your friend dat you used to have. Uncle Lindhall says dey can practic'ly _disappear_. I'm going to learn to be one, when I'm bigger."

"It's a _pygmy _marmoset, sweetling," Numair tells her. He fingers the bridge of his long nose; Daine hides a smile. "That means 'very small.' It's from the ancient word _pugmaios, _which means—"

"Dat's what I said," his daughter replies, a little too patiently. "_Piggly._"

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26. Cookery for Mages _

The only things either of them can reliably cook are campfire foods. Which hasn't mattered much, in the normal course of things, until they try to spend a whole season in the Tower, devoting themselves to family life, and every meal for the first week dissolves into complaints and recriminations.

After the last and worst experiment (which Daine swears is chicken pot pie, and everyone else – even Kitten – refuses to eat at all), Sarralyn and Rikash take matters into their own hands.

The cook at Pirate's Swoop is suspicious, but Rikash plays the pitiful, hungry, _sweet_ little boy to perfection and Sarra says reasonably, "It's only for a little bit. They're clever people; they'll catch on quickly. And I'll stay and learn, too, and help keep an eye on them. I'm _very_ reliable, ma'am."

This turns out not to be strictly true, in that while Sarralyn and Daine do produce much better results after a week's tutelage, Numair (even closely supervised) manages to wreak such havoc after only three days that the cook loses her temper and banishes him permanently.

His wife and daughter never let on that they suspect him of subterfuge, but he knows quite well why, suddenly, he seems to be always washing dishes. Really, though, it's better this way.

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27. Darkness and Light _

When Sarralyn thinks back on her childhood, it sometimes looks to her like sunlight on the forest floor: dappled and shifting, dark and light. The dark patches are her parents' frequent absences from home; the uncomprehending stares of strangers; the hollow feeling of watching her mother and father be all in all to each other; all the times when she felt freakish and misunderstood and alone. The splotches of dazzling light are the times of intense togetherness, the inside jokes, the hours spent learning with her mother what no one else could teach her, the thrill of exercising her unique magic, the joys of a childhood surrounded by loving friends and (whatever its other stresses) never strained by hunger or want.

And sometimes she sees all the darkness; and sometimes she sees only the light.

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28. When You Fall in Love _

Rikash wants to hear over and over all the stories of his parents' youthful adventures, and especially the ones involving esoteric magic. He is a sensitive child, though, and he cries when Numair tells about the tree, somewhere in the world, suddenly becoming a man—he imagines what a dreadful shock it must have been for the tree.

Sarra is more sceptical by nature, and she is bothered by another part of the story. "I don't understand, Da," she says. "Why did you have to turn Master Staghorn into a tree, when Ma was about to shoot him anyway? Didn't you trust her to get him? Everyone knows what a good shot Ma is."

Numair and Daine look at each other. "I think you'll understand better when you're older," Numair says.

"When you fall in love," Daine adds, still looking at her husband.

Sarra (who sees where this is going) rolls her eyes. Rikash (who doesn't) asks for another story, one with animals in.

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29. Tangled _

Daine's hair is as wild as her magic. She tries to trap it under headscarves, to bind it with ribbons or ties, to braid it or coil it or tame it with combs and pins, but to no avail. Sarralyn can never understand why she doesn't just cut it short and win the battle once for all.

Then, very late one night when she can't sleep, she sees firelight flickering in the sitting-room; creeping to the door, she hears murmuring voices and a low, throaty laugh. Daine sits cross-legged on the hearthrug, serene in repose; Numair sits behind her, brushing her hair. From her position in the doorway Sarra can see his face – open, relaxed, deeply content – and his big, powerful hands, working slowly, gently, with infinite patience, to untangle the snarls and smooth out the shining curls.

The next day she asks her father to brush her hair, and he does; but, though his hands are gentle against her skin, it isn't the same.

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30. Warm _

Long after they are old enough for their own beds, Sarra and Rikash almost always end up back in the big bed when one of their parents is away; they should be used to it, it happens so often, but somehow that never seems to matter.

When Da goes off somewhere, the big bed becomes a haven for furred animals of every sort, and the children snuggle happily amongst them in a sleepy, tumbled heap. When Da is home and Ma away, things are different; but still they creep in, in the small hours, to rest their heads on his broad chest and fall asleep to the steady rhythm of his heart.

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31. Obedience? _

Somewhere in the Lower City, two small children are running headlong into mortal peril (to wit, the iron-shod wheels of a cooper's dray on a cobbled street). Twenty feet behind them a tall, dark man raises a hand and bellows, "_Stop_!"

Though the little girl is just five and her brother only two, they stop instantly, apparently frozen to the spot as the cooper's dray rattles by with its head-high load of barrel staves.

An onlooker might admire their obedience to their father's authority – unless that onlooker happened to spot the faint sparkle of black fire holding them in place.

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32. Deaf _

Sarra can't remember how old she was when she first understood that most people (her father and brother included) cannot hear the voices of the People simply by listening with that inner ear. That most two-leggers (as she thinks of them) can understand and speak only with other two-leggers. That they are, in what seems to her a vital way, deaf.

But she does remember what she thought at that moment: _I'd rather not have been born at all._


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** I've been having a lot of trouble with the last chapter of my long AU fic, and this is by way of an attempt to clear the decks. You'll notice that in this instalment the titles are all song titles, which some readers may find cheesy -- you have been warned.

**Disclaimer:** I did not invent Daine, Numair, Sarralyn, Rikash, or Alanna, who all belong to Tamora Pierce. The titles of these pieces belong to John Davenport, Blue Rodeo, Lennon & McCartney, the English folk tradition, Leonard Cohen, U2, Billy Joel, and U2 again.

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33. Fever (When You Hold Me Tight)_

Rikash is sick in bed, shivering, and Ma fusses around him, wrapping him in blankets and tucking hot bricks at his feet. She sends Sarra to fetch a healer, and Sarra comes back with Aunt Alanna: "I ran into her in the corridor," she says. Rikash is worried—Aunt Alanna can be a little scary—but when she talks to him her voice is soft and kind, and her callused hand on his forehead feels soothing. He feels a little warmer, and finally his teeth stop chattering. Ma smoothes his hair back from his sweaty forehead and holds his hand. She looks sad and worried, and he wants to tell her he is fine, as long as she stays with him, but he is too sleepy to form the words.

When he falls asleep, he dreams of strange monsters and falling into deep water. Then a voice he loves whispers his name, and he dreams of running and playing with wolf cubs.

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* * *

34. Lost Together_

Daine dismounts and turns slowly on her heel, surveying their surroundings in the dying light. Numair studies the map; his puzzled frown deepens into a scowl. She makes her eyes a lynx's and her ears a bat's, so that she can see and hear farther, but still, nothing is familiar.

"We're lost," she says.

"What?" he is still focused on the map, as though, independent of reality, it is going to tell him something.

"I said, we're lost," she repeats.

"We're not _lost_," he says patiently. "We're right here, together. We just don't know where we are."

Daine can't help it; she should be worried, should be figuring out a way to solve their problem, should be remembering that they should only have been away three days and the children will be upset, but instead she gets the giggles. "Isn't that what 'lost' _means_?" she asks him, in a sort of chortling gasp. "When we don't know where we are?"

He lets the map roll itself up and slides down from the saddle. "No," he says, coming closer and putting his arms around her. "'Lost' is when _I _don't know where _you_ are."

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* * *

35. Strawberry Fields Forever_

Near the Tower there is a place where strawberries grow wild, ripening small, intensely flavourful fruit beginning in early summer. Rikash and Sarra find this spot when Rikash is still quite small and guard the secret jealously, even (perhaps especially) from their parents. Whenever they return to the Tower, this is the first place they go. It is reassuring, each time, to find that this, at least, is still the same.

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* * *

36. Black Is the Colour of My True Love's Hair_

There is a certain boy who looks at Sarra in a certain way, the winter she is fourteen, and one day he sings her a song:

_Black is the colour of my true love's hair;_

_Her lips are like some roses fair._

_She has the sweetest smile and the gentlest hands,_

_And I love the ground whereon she stands._

She scoffs at him for talking of true love, not to mention of _sweetest smiles_ and _gentlest_ _hands_—if he knew her better, she thinks, he would understand that she has neither, and likes it that way.

Still, the incident makes her think, and her thoughts are not unpleasant.

_

* * *

37. Dance Me to the End of Love_

"I thought you hated extravagant parties, sweet," Numair murmurs into Daine's hair, as they drift around the dance floor in each other's arms.

"I did," she replies.

"Did?" His voice inquiring, tinged with amusement.

"I used to spend them watching you do this with beautiful _ladies of the court_," she explains, lifting her head from his chest to look up at him with dancing eyes. "Now I don't. It's different."

"Oh," he says, remembering that he never used to enjoy parties so much, either.

_

* * *

38. (She Moves in) Mysterious Ways_

_A person shouldn't have to resort to shape-shifting to keep track of her children_, Daine grumbles to herself as, in golden eagle shape, she skims the treetops of the Royal Forest searching for her wayward offspring.

At last she catches a glimpse of a colour that doesn't quite belong—a bright kingfisher blue, much like the shirt Rikash was wearing when she last saw him—and, shaping herself into a starling, flutters down to investigate. There is her son's shirt, sure enough, but (_just my luck_) he isn't in it. In fact, two full sets of child-sized clothes are strewn about the clearing just here, at the edge of a burbling stream.

Daine becomes a wolf, a comfortably familiar shape, and gives herself her own head. "Sarra!" she calls. "Rikash! Come out _this instant! _I've been looking for you all afternoon!"

She goes wolf again to listen. There is no reply, and for a long, heart-stopping moment Daine is sure her children have drowned. Just as she is about to succumb to panic, she hears splashing just downstream. Her ears catch snatches of a whispered conversation on the predictable subject: _Can she see us?_ _How much trouble will we be in?_

They emerge from the trees, naked but for their loincloths, and manage to look shamefaced once they spot her. "Sorry, Ma," Sarralyn says, not sounding it in the least. "We lost track of time."

Daine growls disapprovingly and directs a pointed look at the scattered clothing. As the children hastily dress themselves, she hears her daughter mutter, "'S'not fair. I bet nobody _else_'s Ma could find them all the way out here."

_

* * *

39. Shades of Grey_

It is difficult to be the son or daughter of a saviour—worse, _two_ saviours—of the realm. Even more so when everyone insists that your parents' lives have been full of heroic and glorious deeds, while your parents themselves contend that none of it was glorious _or_ heroic—only _necessary_.

_

* * *

40. Even Better Than the Real Thing_

The most infuriating thing about her parents, Sarralyn decides when she is about twelve, is their utter lack of subterfuge. They're _old_—well, Da is, anyway!—and should be experienced in these matters, but a baby could tell a better lie than either of them.

When she runs into the sitting-room, out of breath with excitement, to tell them she has been invited to spend the _whole summer_ at Dunlath, it is clear that they are not happy to have been interrupted. But she can also see through their attempts to seem pleased by the invitation: they will miss her, and would rather she didn't go.

She is surprised by how happy this makes her.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Yes, I know I said it was finished, but here again I try to overcome writer's block on something longer (in this case chapter 5 of _Altitude_).

**Update A/N:** Duh. I gave all these the wrong numbers -- there are only 48 of them, not 56. Sigh.

**Disclaimer: **All characters mentioned herein were originally invented by Tamora Pierce.

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_41. Sweet Revenge_

Sarralyn is a restless sleeper, even as an infant, and more than once Daine feels the bed creak and shift as Numair, tired of being kicked and elbowed, shuffles off (taking half the blankets with him) to go and sleep on the sitting-room hearth.

She tries not to feel _too_ smug the first time Sarra, newly mobile, clambers down and goes after him, leaving her in full, luxurious possession of the bed.

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* * *

42. The Hardest Thing _

That nightmarish shape-shifting pregnancy was entirely Daine's own fault, according to her Ma (who should know, if anyone does), and, though she wouldn't wish away her daughter's marvellous ability (well, not often, anyway), she has no wish to repeat the experience. During her second pregnancy, therefore, she is obsessively careful, remaining completely human at all times for eight months, three weeks, and two days.

This is, she often thinks, the hardest thing she has ever done. But when Numair, inspecting his newborn son, pales at the magnitude of the baby's Gift, she decides it was worth it: "At least," she says philosophically, "he's only human."

_

* * *

43. Choices _

Rikash wonders what he's supposed to do with his life. Da's lectures on the responsibilities of the Gifted toward the unGifted are all very well, but, like much of Da's conversation, short on practical application. Rikash doesn't have the right sort of magic to be a healer, and the thought of devoting his life to battle magic makes him shudder. And does the realm really need one more mage who can move the earth and turn people into trees?

_

* * *

44. Hellions (with apologies to Kitty Ryan) _

Daine looks around her normally tidy sitting-room in disbelief, certain she has not seen such utter chaos since the last war. In the midst of it the children are sleeping, curled up together in front of the dying fire.

"Your children," she says to Numair, who has had charge of them for the morning, "are _absolutely dreadful_."

"Ah, but they're _your _children now, Magelet," he smirks. "I've a council meeting to attend in a quarter of an hour."

His attempt to sweep elegantly out of the room is spoiled somewhat when she hurls _one, two, three_ juggling balls at his head, only barely glad that he dodges them quickly enough to avoid serious injury.

_

* * *

45. Practical Magic _

"What fun," Sarra grins, when Rikash explains his latest experiment: an antidote for the venom of a rare (nearly extinct) species of snake. "I'll help you test it."

She studies his magically preserved specimen for a moment, then takes his hand in hers.

Then her gown slithers to the floor (won't it be lovely if the housemaster walks in on _that_!) and a slender, perfectly deadly Kyprin banded asp slithers up his arm and bares its little fangs.

Rikash goes very pale, and sits down gingerly on the edge of his desk. If he just keeps breathing regularly, he tells himself, he can stay conscious long enough to talk her out of it.

Then the snake drops away, becomes a mouse, scampers under the discarded gown, and after a moment Sarra stands in front of him again, hands on hips, frowning. "Where's your self-confidence?" she complains. "We could have so much _fun_ if you'd just have a little _faith._"

_

* * *

46. Anniversary _

"But what's it the anniversary _of_?" Sarra demands, as she watches her parents dress for their special anniversary outing. (She is an inconveniently logical and inquisitive child, even at five.) People celebrate wedding anniversaries, she knows; but it's only July, and she _knows_ they got married in the fall.

"Never you mind," Da says severely, and Ma giggles (Ma _never_ giggles) and her cheeks turn pink.

"Look after your brother," Ma says, "and mind your Aunt Lianne."

And they kiss her and Rikash, and out they go.

Sarra scowls mutinously: she hates being left in the dark.

_

* * *

47. Namesake _

It's uncomfortable, sometimes, being named after a Stormwing. Most people don't know them the way his parents do. When he asks whether the original Rikash was always a Stormwing, and, if not, how he became one, Ma and Da look at each other, and make odd throat-clearing noises, and finally admit that they never thought to ask.

_

* * *

48. Silence _

It is well known in Corus that Numair Salmalín can talk _forever_ about absolutely anything.

His children discover the exception to this rule when they ask him to tell them all about his family back in Tyra.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:**Writing ficlets easy. Sustaining an actual narrative arc hard. Sigh.

**Disclaimer:** Tamora Pierce's characters, my sometimes-twisted take thereon.

_

* * *

49. Furious_

Numair and Daine clash rarely but spectacularly, with raised voices and heated words. Neither has ever struck the other, but the possibility has loomed more than once.

When Daine is angry, she is angry with all of her being; Numair, whom she loves with everything she has, can make her angrier than any other creature in all the realms. She is dimly aware that even when she has completely given in to her fury, when she has reached the stage of shouting incoherently and of saying things for which she will later have to apologize, he still manages to retain some measure of control over himself. Perversely, this makes her more furious still.

_

* * *

50. Dreaming/Waking_

Rikash has a recurring nightmare in which he is a Stormwing (which is bad enough, though perhaps inevitable) and must fight, over and over again, another Stormwing, who wants to take from him something precious that he has vowed to defend. The dream always ends the same way: he falls and falls until he wakes, gasping and afraid to go back to sleep.

What the _something_ is he never discovers, until one day, when he is seven years old, he happens to hear a minstrel ballad he has never heard before, a particular tale from the famous Battle of Legann. It is a long and violent and bloody one – but it isn't quite as bad as the dream.

_

* * *

51. Conveniently Forgettable_

"Is this really necessary, Magelet?"

"Believe me, it is. Have you forgotten what happened the last time?"

"Perhaps I have. I'm an old man, you know."

"Not _old_. Oblivious, more like."

"That was unkind."

"But true enough. Perhaps if _your_ father had paid more attention—"

"Very well: stand back, then. Sarra! Rikash! Come and look at me—yes, that's right …"

_

* * *

52. Home_

She worries about what will become of them—of her, in particular—when he is gone. Not whether they will still have a place to call home, but how any place can be called her home without him in it.

_

* * *

53. Precious_

It is an old book, but so clean and unblemished that it looks almost new. _Spelled, of course_, she realizes. It is Ma's most prized possession, and now Ma and Da have finally deemed her old enough to use it.

She takes a deep breath and opens the volume, almost at random, to a finely detailed drawing of a bat's wing. And stares at it as though it will somehow help her understand her mother.

_

* * *

54. If/When_

"I'll only be gone a few days," he tells her.

"We'll miss you," she says. "_I'll_ miss you."

"I know."

"I wish you'd tell me what it is you're going to do." Anxiously.

"If I could—"

"I know."

"When I get back, I'll tell you all about it," he promises.

"Numair?"

"Yes, Magelet."

"If you get yourself killed—"

"I know: you'll never forgive me." He smiles wanly, thinking, _Isn't that my line?_

"I might," she says. "But you can be sure the children won't. Don't do anything stupid."

_

* * *

55. Whispers_

Hearing more is easy: Sarra learned the trick of bat ears years ago. But sometimes it would be more useful to hear _less._ Unfortunately, there are no ears duller than her human ones.

Instead, therefore, she learns to use rumour to her own advantage. She isn't proud of it, some days; but doesn't Ma always say, "We all do our best with what the Gods give us"?

_

* * *

56. Promises, Promises_

"Let me up!" Rikash pleads.

"Are you going to tell?"

"Well—"

"_Are you_?" Her face looms closer, threateningly.

"Ow! No – I won't – I promise. Will you let me up now?"

"Fine. Get up, then, cry-baby." She lets him up and turns her back on him, arms folded, nose in the air.

"Am not a cry-baby."

"You _are_! You're crying this minute."

"Am not! You're _mean_!" He is hardly crying at all, really. Considering.

"You started it, _cry-baby_."

"Didn't! It was you, you – you—" It's infuriating, the way all the dreadful insults he thinks of in quieter moments desert him when it counts.

"Ha!"

"Chicken-legs!" This is better than nothing, but not very satisfying.

"Curly-locks!"

"Stupidhead!"

"Worms-for-brains!"

"_Two-legger!_"

There is a sound, and the air blurs for a moment.

Rikash blinks at the snarling wolverine. Then he takes off running. "I'm _telling_!" he howls.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** This is the last instalment -- thanks so much to everyone who has read and reviewed:) :)

**Disclaimer:** Invented by Tamora Pierce; embroidered upon by me. Also, the title of #61 is the first line of a poem by Andrew Marvell.

_

* * *

57. A Daughter Just Like You_

In some ways, Sarralyn is very much like her mother. So much like, in fact, that Daine loses track of the number of times she has crept into the children's bedroom, after a day full of petty, childish quarrels, to kiss her sleeping daughter and murmur broken apologies, words of love. She knows, now, what her mother meant when (in a moment of frustration) she wished on Daine "a daughter just like you".

_

* * *

58. Lessons_

Sometimes Rikash learns his lessons a little _too_ well. This must be one of those occasions, Daine concludes when, rounding a corner a hundred yards from her own front door, she hears a familiar bellow: "Rikash Salmalín! _What_ have I told you about mind-capturing your sister?"

_

* * *

59. Someday_

"People will talk," Onua warns her.

"Let them," she retorts. "In any case they've _been_ talking for ten years or more. Might as well give them something to talk _about_."

"The way people talked about you, back in your village." Her friend's voice is gentler, now, trying to take the sting from the ugly words.

The sting remains. Can she do that to her child—their child?

"But it isn't a fair choice. I don't want us to be … trapped together. Married is _forever_, Onua, whether you're happy about it or not—"

"Have you ever not been happy about it?"

She thinks about this.

"It's been _eight years_, Daine. If you were going to decide he was too old, or too tall, or too … _strange_, wouldn't you have done it by now?"

She thinks some more, then at last she nods slowly. A smile—compounded of relief and gratitude and sheer, unexpected joy—lights her face. "We could have it on the Equinox," she says, "so my Da and Ma can be there. Who knows? Maybe they'll take the hint …"

_

* * *

60. Reunion_

It has been an age since he saw her last—days, weeks, months—he hardly knows. War does this to a man. Cavall's squire takes his horse's reins, which he scarcely notices until the lad touches his sleeve, speaks to him, gestures to the watchtower—_she's up there_, he says, _waiting for you_.

He is surprised at how quickly he covers the distance: perhaps he is not as worn out as he thought. He takes the stairs two at a time, then three, and in only a moment, it seems, he is in the doorway, looking at her across the empty observation deck. Another moment, and she is in his arms.

———

"We'll miss supper," she murmurs slyly, lifting her head from his bare shoulder to nuzzle his ear.

"I don't care."

"You need to keep up your strength, love." There is mischief in her tone.

"I've plenty of strength left, thank you," he retorts, and to prove it he rolls onto his elbows, pinning her under him, and kisses her thoroughly. "In fact," he adds, when she is too breathless to protest, "I don't think I'd much mind missing breakfast as well."

_

* * *

61. Had We But World Enough, and Time_

"It was her time, Sarra." Rikash helps his sister to her feet and holds her tight, waiting for her sobs to quiet. "She was ready. They're together now—she was never the same after he died, you know."

Sarra can hear what an effort he is making to keep the reproach from his voice. Rikash is too good for this world, she sometimes thinks; it's he who has watched at their mother's bedside these past weeks, he who has been here all these years, working, studying, raising his family … _belonging _in a way she never has.

It amazes her that her curly-headed, impetuous baby brother has grown into this tall, strong, _steady_ man. That he is comforting her, now, as once she was accustomed to comfort him.

"There's so much I didn't get to say," she tells him. But she can't bring herself to go further; it isn't his fault that she is destined to grow old and die alone. That there was only one man in the mortal realms mad enough to love a shape-shifter, and that man has been dead these fifteen years.

"But you came back," he says, squeezing her shoulders. "And that's what matters."

She tries hard to believe his words are true.

_

* * *

62. Mistakes Made_

Young dragons, it turns out, do not make particularly good child-minders. Numair and Daine realize after the fact (surveying the storm-swept disaster area of Sarralyn's bedroom) that, given prior experience, this should have occurred to them. But sometimes, after being up half the night at an emergency Council meeting and the other half with a colicky baby, parents need an afternoon nap.

_

* * *

63. For Your Information_

"Da?" Sarralyn asks. "Why do some antelopes have twisty horns, and some have straight ones?"

Numair thinks carefully about this before embarking on a fifteen-minute disquisition on the various species of antelopes. "Why do you ask, love?" he inquires, when he has run out of information.

"Oh," says his daughter, airily, "Just to know."

_

* * *

64. When I'm Sixty-Four_

The King and Queen host an elaborate banquet for her fiftieth birthday. Rikash comes to Corus with his wife and young daughter, and Sarralyn, doing her best to look congratulatory, is there too; the Baron of Pirate's Swoop is also in attendance, as are the King's Champion and the Commander of the Riders. Messages from distant well-wishers are ceremoniously read aloud; the Emperor and Empress of Carthak have sent gifts, as has the mysterious spymaster of the Copper Isles.

Daine is flattered and pleased; but, as she looks around the hall, she can't help dwelling on the missing faces. Many of those who gathered here for Numair's fiftieth birthday are absent now, or have changed out of all recognition. This was bound to happen, she knows that, but somehow it doesn't seem much of a celebration without them.

A hand touches her shoulder; she looks up into Thayet's smiling face. "I know you would have preferred a smaller gathering," says the Dowager Queen of Tortall. "But the children insisted. Roald admires you so, you know, ever since he was a child."

"It's lovely," Daine says. "I appreciate it, truly. I only wish …"

"I know." Thayet's smile is infinitely sad. "So do I."

The Dowager Queen moves off, toward her seat beside the white-haired Lioness. Daine stands quite still for a moment, watching and remembering, with a little smile, her first meetings with those formidable ladies.

"Mithros bless!" says a warm baritone voice from somewhere behind her. "_You_ look very pretty. Happy birthday, Magelet."

She turns, and smiles, and – eyes closed – nestles into her husband's arms. Some things, thank the Goddess, haven't changed a bit.


End file.
